Patek Philippe Commemorate Maison in Shanghai With Special “World Time” Model

Last year luxury watchmakers Patek Philippe opened their first Maison in China’s largest city, Shanghai. The Maison Patek Philippe, located in the historic Bund area of Shanghai, marks the Swiss manufacture’s continued growth in China with their local partner, the Melchers Group. In addition to their boutique in Beijing, the Maison was established to bridge the vast geographical distance between Europe and China.

Now, the Swiss company have unveiled a special version of their iconic “World Time” model, a watch famous for its time zone ring, which bears the names of 24 cities around the world to represent the 24 time zones. On the Shanghai “World Time” model, Shanghai takes the place of Hong Kong on the time zone ring, with the city’s name highlighted in red to mark this special edition. This complication also has a 24 hour ring, as well as hour and minute hands displaying local time in the middle of its gray guilloched dial. The “World Time” model is highly coveted, as it allows the wearer to display their local time zone simply by positioning their city name at 12 o’clock at the top of the dial. Meanwhile, home or other time zones are displayed by the 24-hour scale opposite the name of the respective city. This means that when traveling, there’s no need to stop the watch to move the hands or calculate time differences manually. Instead, it just takes a few actuations of the push piece at the 10 o’clock.

At the heart of the Shanghai “World Time” model is a Caliber 240 HU self-winding mechanism. The sapphire-crystal caseback of this timepiece bears the words “Patek Philippe Shanghai Salon Inauguration 2012” in metalized text. Only twenty-five of each the rose gold and white gold version of this model will be produced. The Shanghai “World Time” model retails for CNY450,000 (approximately US$72,400).

The rose gold version (reference 5130R-017) and the white gold version (reference 5130G-018) of the special Shanghai “World Time” model are pictured above. Photos courtesy Patek Philippe.